A WOMAN said to have a passion for dogs has been banned from keeping any animal for 10 years.

Sheila Marian Hendren - who now lives in fear of attack - admitted ill-treatment after she kept four Collie-cross dogs in appalling conditions at her Buckley home.

Hendren, 55, wept as a court refused to return her four dogs and said the RSPCA could go ahead and re-home them.

Hendren was ordered to pay £1,000 costs and was placed on a combination order of 60 hours unpaid work, which magistrates said she would find therapeutic, and 12 months rehabilitation to help her 'thinking deficits'.

Magistrates said the four dogs - one tied to a bed, another to a chair, another to the top of the stairs and a fourth at the bottom of the stairs - had been kept in conditions which were 'filthy in the extreme'.

They were starving, and magistrate John Braybrook said it was significant that within a short period of proper care by the RSPCA they had virtually doubled in weight.

Outside court, she revealed that publicity surrounding the case meant she had been threatened and intimidated.

She, and her son, are now homeless, living in a hotel in Chester, and she said feelings against her were such she would be unable to return home to Flintshire.

RSPCA Inspector Tim Jones welcomed the ban and said the conditions in which he found the dogs were among the worst he had ever seen. He said: 'They were absolutely atrocious. At least we can get on with re-housing the four dogs so they can live the rest of their lives in comfort.' At an earlier hearing, similar charges against the defendant's son Ian, 31, were dropped.

But magistrates said they were concerned he could keep animals in future and his mother would be in a position to influence their care.

Mr Braybrook said Hendren had ignored the earlier advice of an RSPCA inspector and said there had been a prolonged period of neglect.

Flintshire Magistrates Court heard how bailiffs called in the RSPCA when Hendren and her son were evicted from their home in Buckley in May of last year. There was a terrible smell of dog faeces and ammonia which was overpowering. The dogs were seriously underweight, had fleas and needed food and veterinary attention.

Michael Cunnah, prosecuting, said the dogs did not receive adequate care and attention. All four dogs ate and drank when taken to a vet, put on considerable weight, and had since made a full recovery.

Hendren had been advised by an RSPCA inspector earlier to take one of the dogs to a vet and she had agreed to do so. On the day of the eviction, Inspector Tim Jones went in and described the downstairs as being full of rubbish with several inches of dog faeces on the floor.

Vet Stephen Drew found the dogs had flea infections, hair loss and were noticeably underweight.

Interviewed, Hendren said the dogs lived with them in the upstairs of the house and at the time she was battling eviction and could not afford vets' fees.

Defending barrister Vincent Yip said at the time the couple had severe financial difficulties and were not in a position to care and feed for themselves, let alone the dogs.

The animals normally had the run of the house, he said, but they had been tied up that day because Hendren knew people would be entering the house for the eviction and she did not want the dogs to attack them.

She was a woman of previous good character who had got into difficulties because of the financial problems and the stress of eviction.